In article <evrmkv0rh3ua0lbdpn7k0j8l84tr46m1hd@4ax.com>, House Widdershins
says...

Tell ya what. 

Whaaaa?

Encounter Phenomena Defy 'Set Pattern'/All Data Must Be Considered  by Karla
Turner

It is a myth that alien abductions of humans follow a set pattern or agenda.
Perhaps the best-known proponent of this theory is Budd Hopkins, who in his
books made the genetics and other cross-breeding scenario familiar to the
public.  Yet when you read back through those books, you'll notice that several
of the alien encounters seem to have very little apparent connection to an
interest in breeding of DNA.  And even Hopkins, in the past couple of years, has
had to expand his theory to include a definite alien interest in some other
things, such as pleasure and pain in humans.

Other well-known UFO researchers also harbor restrictive theories about the
abduction phenomenon, Jacques Vallee, David Jacobs, Whitley Strieber, Brad
Steiger, John Lear, Raymond Fowler, Jenny Randles, Kevin Randle, John Keel and
other writers hold a diversity of intelligent, often ingenious theories, yet
each makes the same error.  They ignore parts of the abductions
evidence--whatever details don't support their ideas.

Inadequate Theories:

Yet it must be clear that any present theory which cannot account for all the
known evidence is not acceptable.  At best, it can be misleading, especially for
victims of abductions who turn to these prominent researchers seeking answers.
A case in point occurred during a conversation with a prominent researcher in
1989.  In his lectures, this researcher always said that he had certain ways of
testing the validity of potential new abduction cases, and one of those ways was
the presence of particular scars on the victims' bodies.  I questioned him about
a different kind of scar, one which I often appeared on abductees of my own
acquaintance, and the researcher denied that such a mark showed up in his cases.

"Are you sure?" I asked incredulously.  "This mark is pretty common around here,
and I'd think it would show up in other places, too.  In fact I know it has."
"No," he insisted, shaking his head, "the only marks I find are like the ones
I've already described."
"And this other mark hasn't shown up at all?" I asked.
"No." he repeated.
Not even once?? I persisted.
"Well," he said reluctantly, lowering his voice, "there have been a couple of
instances.   That child I talked about tonight, she had two of those marks, and
I think there was another case.  But they're so rare that I have to ignore them.
When you have two hundred cases with Scar A and only two cases with Scar B, you
go with the numbers."
And that was the message he delivered, to an audience where anxious abductees
were made to wonder if their anomalous marks meant anything after all, or if, as
so many of their friends seemed to think, they were delusions of a troubled
mind.

No Single Pattern:

In truth, however, although there are recurrent events in the abduction
phenomenon, there is no single pattern or structure.  And until we know what all
the events mean, we can't afford to ignore any of them.
What is one to make, for instance, of an ET-human encounter in which two of the
four aliens assisted the abductee in preparing a roast for dinner?  Granted,
other events occurred in this case, but the dinner was indeed cooked, served and
eaten by the abductee's family less than two hours after the ETs departed.
Other details of this encounter included the manipulation of the abductee's
neck, "for the purpose of instruction," and a discussion of genetically-stored
memories and knowledge that can be tapped open in humans.  But there was no
medical exam, no cross-breeding activity, and no warnings of coming catastrophe,
all of which are events that have been used to construct abduction theories.  I
know this to be true because it happened to me.

Human Duplicates:

Another anomalous event involves the duplication or replacement of the human by
an alien counterpart.  In one instance, a young man and his fiancee were in
their car when a "shimmering force" enveloped him.  He passed out, but moments
later he began to move, acting and talking entirely differently.  His fiancee
became terrified when he tried to drag her out into the dark back yard, where he
told her, "Something wants to see you there."  And only when a friend drove into
the yard did the young man return to normal, with no memory of his aberrant
behavior during the past ten minutes.
Under hypnotic regression, the fiancee described the young man as being kept in
the car while the "other one" took his form and tried to control her.  She
called the "other one" a "hologram" and consistently referred to it as "it," not
"him."  In fact, she said she struggled to get away from "it" and back to the
car where "the real" young man was still waiting.
Under separate regression, the young man recalled his version of the evening and
said that at a certain point he was "turned off" and "unplugged," yet he
couldn't say what sort of power was then operating his body.
An even more bizarre event happened to a woman in the Southwest during her
encounter.  She said she was "removed" from her body and stored in some
inexplicable way, still aware, however, and able to communicate with her
captors.  They told her that another entity was now using her body, that it was
going through all her regular activities, and that no one would be able to tell
the difference.  The day after the abduction when she returned to her job, she
found that her body has indeed been at work, even though she herself was
somewhere else.   [How many other humans right now, this very instance, have
been replaced by e.t./human clones???]

Interdimensional Being:

These alien intruders apparently can behave and appear in a variety of ways.  In
one man's experience, a human-looking woman often appeared, although she claimed
she was an interdimensional being whose real appearance was not what the
abductee saw.  At times, she would be 'completely there,' and very
three-dimensional, but at other times only her head would be visible, or her
head and hands.
The evidence from several cases also shows that the aliens have an odd interest
in our animals, yet this is hardly mentioned in standard abduction research.
During a period of intense ET activity in my family's life, our dog was somehow
moved one night from a fenced back yard into a locked garage.  And the same dog,
conversely, woke us up one morning barking in the back yard, when it had been
put in a locked garage the night before.  In both cases, these was no sign that
either the gate or the garage door had been opened.  The old dog was quite
blind, at any rate, and would have had trouble getting anywhere, even if both
passageways had been clear.

Pet Puzzler:

Transporting dogs turned up again in the case of a UFO researcher.  Her dog
slept outside, yet in the middle of the night she was awakened by his wet tongue
on her face.  She and the dog were in her bed, but her bedroom door was still
locked, as was the outside door, and there were two other doors closed in
between them.
Horses also have been moved, leaving their abductee-owners to track them down in
corrals far distant from where the animals had been locked away for the night.
It's hard to imagine the purpose of such events, yet they are part of the larger
phenomenon and must have some relevance.
There also seems to be a connection between abductions and the disappearance and
appearance of possessions and other objects.  One of the more humorous episodes
occurred when a researcher was visiting another city and staying as a guest in
our home.  The day had been spent in work with other abductees, and that evening
the group ordered Chinese food.

Preferred Utensils Appear:

As we sat eating the food, the researcher remarked that she preferred eating
Chinese food with chopsticks. but we didn't have any.  After the meal, the
researcher went to her room then returned moments later with a very puzzled
expression, "I thought you didn't have any chopsticks," she told my husband.
"And I certainly didn't mean for you to go out and buy them!  But thank you
anyway for being so thoughtful,"  She held out a pair of chopsticks wrapped in
paper and smiled.
"Where did you get those?" he asked in amazement.
"They were on my bed," she replied. "Didn't you put them there?"
"Of course, not!  There aren't-weren't-any chopsticks in the house, I promise
you.  And I haven't gone anywhere!" 
Other objects have appeared out of nowhere, such as metal balls falling from
abductees' bodies when they rose from their beds the morning after an encounter.
In another instance, a mother saw what looked like a white book floating
horizontally in her son's bedroom, but when she went in, there was no book to be
seen.  In one abductee's home, a fish disappeared from their aquarium, and then
it reappeared ten days later, twice as large as it had been.  Within 24 hours it
died, as did all the other fish in the tank.

Women in distress:

Perhaps the most remarkable and disturbing set of cases concerning two women I
know but who are unacquainted with each other.  The first woman awoke one
morning to find her bed soaked with blood.  It was during her menstrual cycle,
yet she was surprised to have bled so profusely as to soak through the tampon
she had inserted before going to bed.  When she went to the bathroom to clean
up, she could find no tampon to remove.  Frantically she searched her bed, the
bedroom, and finally her entire apartment, but the tampon had disappeared.  A
few days later, she related the incident to me, but neither of us knew what to
make of it.
A month passed, and I received a call from the second woman, who lived far away
from me.  She was perplexed by an event of the previous night and wanted to tell
someone about it.  This woman was having her menstrual cycle also, and the night
before had put on a sanitary pad before going to bed.  Several hours later, she
woke up and decided to change the pad, as she was an unusually heavy bleeder.
In surprise, however, she found the pad was spotless, and then she felt
something inside her.  She told me that she removed the tampon, but couldn't
understand how it had gotten there.  "I haven't used tampons in ten years," she
said, "so this doesn't make any sense."

Anomalies in 'Typical' Reports:

Anomalies have turned up in some cases that might otherwise seem to follow the
"typical" abduction sequence of going in the ship, undergoing an examination and
being returned with little or no memory.  Sometimes, for instance, the
surroundings in the ship are described as mess or dirty, with foul odors and
signs of sloppy housekeeping.  Sometimes the interior is said to be crowded,
buzzing with numerous entities engaged in rapid, inexplicable movements from
place to place.
Even more unusual are those accounts of abduction to inner space rather than
outer space.  In these cases, abductees tell of being taken into large
underground complexes, and their descriptions very often include
earthly--perhaps military--apparatus as well as the presence of both humans and
aliens working together.  These underground areas are reached through long
vertical or corkscrewing tunnels, the abductees say, and in one case the place
looked like a movie set of an old Western town.

Bathroom Settings:

A third anomalous episode, which may have taken place aboard a craft or in an
underground setting, involves abductees taken into "bathroom" settings.  There
they are made to get into stalls with or without toilets, and in most cases the
abductees are thoroughly frightened by the events that occur in these
surroundings, often having to do with examination of their sexual organs.  
Most of these anomalous details have come from a relatively small group of
abductees, yet similar cases are known elsewhere.  In the instances of the odd
scar, which began this discussion, there are cases of the triangular pattern
turning up all over the world, yet no prominent researcher has acknowledged
this.  The scoop marks and straight-line cuts are well known. but just as
frequent are less permanent scars and marks.  Single, double and multiple
puncture marks appear on abductees' bodies, as do wide paths of subcutaneous
purplish smears, triangles and other shapes made by skin discoloration rather
than punctures, and long claw-mark, scratches, usually numerous, accompanied by
even longer welts of unbroken skin.

Challenge To Positive Theories:

As to researchers who claim that the ETs are here to help us evolve some higher
consciousness or that they are here for some other positive purpose-saving our
planet, promoting world peace, etc.-I challenge those researches to incorporate
anomalous data in this view.
What about those people who suffer total breakdowns after their experiences?
What about those who undergo wild personality changes, who find themselves
obsessed with deviant sexual behavior they never had before, often leading to
the breakup of marriages and friendships?  These things have happened numerous
times, but no researcher has yet explained the higher purpose behind such
results.
Particularly disturbing are those cases where previously healthy individuals
have an ET encounter and then develop debilitating or terminal illnesses. [Like
Karla herself]  It is well known that many women suffer gynecological problems
after their experiences, often leading to hysterectomies.  But other instances
have shown the development of severe fatigue, horrible swelling and itching, and
even cancer.  Where are the positive effects in these cases?
Theories are starting places for research, not proven conclusions, and UFO
researchers must be willing to expand and alter their pet theories according to
the data they uncover.  It would be wonderful if we could shape ET experiences
into something positive, but until the details of abductions encounters-all the
details-are given serious consideration, I think it's dangerous to cling to
theories that ignore data that will not fit.  We owe it to ourselves to seek the
whole truth.

Originally appeared in UFO magazine, Vol. 8 No. 1 January/February 1993